Is Edwards' buddy the daddy?

RALEIGH, N.C. — For nearly a decade, Andrew Young was John Edwards' loyal foot soldier as Edwards rocketed from millionaire trial lawyer to U.S. senator to two-time White House hopeful.

When Edwards needed someone to scout locations for a Senate campaign office, he sent Young. When TV trucks converged on Edwards' house in 2003 and damaged the neighbors' lawns, Young was told to take care of it.

And when Edwards was confronted with the biggest crisis of his political career, Young was there again: After the National Enquirer reported that Edwards had an affair with a video producer, Young issued a statement in December saying that he — and not the candidate — was the father of the woman's baby.

But given Young's unswerving devotion to Edwards — and given Edwards' lies in initially denying he cheated on his wife — some campaign watchers wonder whether Young, a 42-year-old married man, is taking the fall for his boss.

”Given the pattern of the thing, it's not unreasonable for people to ask“ whether the child belongs to Edwards, said Gary Pearce, a longtime Democratic operative in North Carolina and a consultant to Edwards' 1998 Senate bid.

In an ABC interview earlier this month, Edwards denied the possibility he is the father.

Around the same time that Young put out a terse statement in which he claimed to be the baby's father, Edwards' former mistress, Rielle Hunter, issued her own statement saying the same thing.

Then, only weeks before the first vote of the 2008 Iowa caucuses, Young dropped out of sight. He packed up and left for California in a move bankrolled by Edwards' national fund-raiser.

Young, like Hunter, has gone into seclusion, and he has not returned messages in months. Calls this week to attorneys who represented him in the past were not returned.